Revelation 12:1-4 NIVUK
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
The forgotten Nativity story, never found in school productions! This telling is a brutal telling with the pain of childbirth and the struggle of life not hidden but made clear. Here Mary endures labour with evil symbolised in the form of this mighty dragon set to snatch her child away. This is the backdrop of the incarnation, the world that Jesus came into.
Father, thank you that you have not abandoned us to the pain of life in a broken world but sent your Son into it for us!
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